Online gossip forum Tattle Life “needs to be shut down” as it's spreading “horrendous” content about people’s personal lives, a Fianna Fáil TD has said.

The website says they allow “commentary and “critiques” of those who “monetise their personal lives as a business” in the public domain.

On Newstalk Breakfast today, Deputy Cathal Crowe said there are “threads of hate” on the website where users are mostly targeting figures in the UK – but it has spread to Ireland too.

He said many Irish people who live their life outside of the public eye have been the subject of malicious rumours on Tattle Life.

“There are threads about RTÉ personalities, but then there are threads about people in local towns,” said Deputy Crowe.

“I saw a local business person, a camogie star, people who are living pretty regular lives but certain sections of society are turning on them.

“One example; my attention was drawn to a boutique owner in the midlands who is not a celebrity and running a fine business, trying her best.

“A few people in her community seem to have rounded on her.”

Dangerous

Deputy Crowe said the information being spread about people is dangerous.

“What you get on Tattle is people who have some knowledge of you, they put up details of where you live, where you’ve gone on summer holidays, and things like that,” he said.

“I’ve even seen photos of children and comments on how the children look.

“We often talk about Snapchat and other social media platforms, but this is way worse in my eyes.”

File photo of a person using a laptop keyboard | Image: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/PA Images

The Clare TD said work needs to be done to curtail online abuse.

“I think this is a priority of Government and my own party leader Micheál Martin mentioned it at the recent Ard Fheis,” he said.

“It’s the first time ever social media has been spotlighted to this extent in Ireland.

“There’s a lot of talk about age verification, but it’s a different realm when we’re talking about adults who do know better.

“I think we’re going to skirt around the issue as a country and in the European Union until we get to the point that every social media account is verifiable.”

'Who's behind it?'

Deputy Crowe said Tattle Life needs to be held personally responsible for the content on their website.

“Immediately I’d ask that they [Tattle Life] appear before Oireachtas committees," he said.

“At least Meta and Facebook have identifiable heads and they’re an organisation.

“Nobody can find out who runs Tattle and who’s behind it, I think it’s a British platform – but they need to come before the Oireachtas.

“If they can’t explain themselves and clean up their act then it needs to be shut down – I don’t know how to do it technologically.”

Over 370,000 users have posted on Tattle Life across over 43,000 threads full of mostly gossip content.

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Main image: Teenager girl on her phone, 20-03-2019. Image: Samuel wordley / Alamy